It is well-known that marketplace participants of many different types have had particular specialized needs which may not have readily been available through convenient channels of trade, such as stores or as described in mass-market advertising. Thus, these participants, which may be individuals, organizations or other participant types have had to resort to a variety of relatively crude methods in an attempt to meet their needs, which may include, for example, needs for particular goods, services or personnel. Similarly, marketplace participants which may be able to offer such specialized goods, services or personnel frequently have difficulty in making their offerings available to the parties most interested in them through convenient channels of trade.
One frequently-used method of allowing consumers of these goods, products or services, which may collectively be referred to as “items,” to find suppliers has been through the classified advertisement sections provided in virtually all newspapers. For example, the owner of a used car may place an ad describing the characteristics of the car and naming an asking price. A house-painter may place an ad describing the services he provides. An organization may place an ad describing a particular job which it would like to fill. Unfortunately, the newspaper classifieds system suffers from a number of drawbacks. The newspaper merely provides a mechanism for publishing the advertisement and is unable to provide any assistance in guiding suppliers and consumers together other than in grouping the ads into general categories. In addition, such a system includes no reciprocity: the parties most interested in responding to these ads are unlikely to publish ads of their own describing the car, painter or job sought because of the large cost involved in proportion to the number of likely suppliers to be reached with the ad, and so the newspaper publisher would be unable to match consumers to suppliers even if the newspaper had a mechanism for doing so.
Other approaches to this problem have evolved around the unique characteristics of specific markets. For example, a wide variety of systems and techniques have been developed in an effort to bring job-seekers and job openings together. Unfortunately, the solutions which have been developed are highly fragmented and inefficient. For example, recruiters or “headhunters” actively match job-seekers to job openings, but the process is very labor-intensive and expensive. Placement agencies are somewhat more efficient for lower-skilled positions, but are considerably less effective at recruiting and placing higher-skilled workers and are still relatively expensive. Mass market advertising through print, television or radio advertisements may be effective in reaching potential employees, but suffer from many of the same drawbacks as the classified ad system. Mass marketing may also be practiced by job-seekers who blanket organizations with resumes, but because the resumes frequently fail to target particular jobs, and because the sheer number of resumes is frequently overwhelming, it is often very difficult for organizations to effectively process the resumes to match job-seekers to possible job openings.
The advent of the internet has provided a powerful new medium for bringing sellers and consumers of a wide variety of items in innovative ways. For example, eBay provides a wildly popular online auction system for sellers and consumers of items all over the world. Priceline.com enables buyers, rather than sellers, to specify the price they are willing to pay for certain items with sellers having the choice of whether to sell at the specified price, thus reversing the traditional roles of buyer and seller in a transaction. In the job marketplace, hundreds of job listing and resume clearinghouses have proliferated, giving job-seekers heretofore unavailable access to organizations and job-opening information. In each case, however, the onus typically remains on the users of each such system to search through the system to find the item sought.
A number of patented and unpatented internet systems have been introduced with a wide variety of features purporting to help automate the process of matching job-seekers to job openings. For example, e-Recruiter (from Hire.com) and MBAFreeAgents.com each attempt to standardize the language used in the job-matching process by providing job-seekers with a collection of possible standard responses in each of a number of categories, and providing employers with the same collections of choices when the employers are defining job openings. Unfortunately, the categories in which choices are offered by either system are very limited. e-Recruiter also allows employers to further customize their individual systems by defining collections of choices in additional categories. An unfortunate result, however, is that e-Recruiter is implemented separately by every individual employer, thus requiring job-seekers to learn each separate employer's “language” in order to use the system effectively. The Pentawave system, as described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,375, provides job-seekers with a collection of possible standard responses in each of a number of categories, and provides employers with the ability to search by the same criteria. Unfortunately, the Pentawave system allows employers only to search on the criteria, and does not allow employers to define job openings in the same way. Thus, a need exists for a job-matching or item-matching system in which the entirety of an extremely comprehensive resume may be defined by a standard language which corresponds completely to the language utilized to describe all job openings defined by employers, and which is implemented in the same way on every web site affiliated with the system, and which allows job-seekers to search for job openings that match their own criteria.
In another system which attempts to standardize the language used in the job-matching process, CareerSite allows job-seekers and employers to describe themselves and their job openings, respectively, by inputting simple words or phrases in response to each of a set of questions. A thesaurus then examines the responses and identifies possible “concepts” which the job-seeker or employer, respectively, may choose to require to be present in a job opening or candidate, respectively. The questions may be the same for both job-seekers and employers, so the search engine is able to determine “matches” by comparing the concepts extracted from the job-seeker's input to the concepts extracted from the employer's input in each category. The use of the thesaurus enables the job-seeker and the employer to respond to the same question in different ways or “languages” by translating what each says into a common set of concepts. Unfortunately, this “translation” process requires a great deal of intelligence to be built into the system in order to allow job-seekers and employers to communicate with each other using different “languages.” Thus, a need exists for a job-matching or item-matching system in which job-seekers and employers alike utilize the same “language” to describe both themselves and their job openings, respectively, so that “translation” is minimized or eliminated.
Several systems provide mechanisms for adding additional descriptive elements to a data file representing items such as resumes or job-openings. For example, Headhunter.net appears to allow a job-seeker to complete a psychological profile and to attach the results to his resume for review by potential employers. CareerMosaic and CareerSite allow employers to include a link to the employer's web site, which could be utilized to provide additional details about the employer. CareerSite allows employers to post a webpage of information about themselves within the CareerSite system. e-Recruiter allows employers to include a list of interview questions for job-seekers with each job opening they post, and allows job-seekers to enter responses for each question. Unfortunately, none of these systems provide or suggest the use of additional “add-ons,” and Headhunter.net does not even disclose or suggest the concept of objects. The Pentawave system described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,375 allows employers to pose questions to job-seekers, and captures and stores the job-seeker' audio or video responses, and, in addition, allows other types of multimedia to be input as well. Unfortunately, like the other referenced systems, the system of U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,375 itself makes only one type of “add-on” available, while other add-ons must be manually created by job-seekers in a format that prospective employers may or may not wish, or even be able, to take advantage of Further, although, as described, several prior art systems allow a user, such as a job-seeker, to provide a add-on of various types, none of the prior art systems allow a complementary user, such as a job-offeror, to provide a reciprocal add-on which may, for example, be matched against, or compared to, the first user's add-on. Thus, a need exists for a system which provides a large library of standardized “object” types to both job-seekers and prospective employers for custom completion, and in which reciprocal objects may be completed by job-seekers and employers and then included in the matching process.
Some systems provide users with the power to exercise greater control over the results of a given database search by allowing them to specify certain terms or attributes which must be present in a given data file in order for the data file to be included in the results of the search. For example, the Pentawave system described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,375 allows employers to exclude a job-seeker entirely when the job-seeker lacks any of the specified attributes. Unfortunately, no corresponding complementary function is available to job-seekers for use in controlling the importance of specific attributes when searching for suitable job openings. On the other hand, CareerSite.com allows job-seekers and employers to require that certain “concepts,” as determined by a thesaurus, must be present in a particular job opening or candidate, respectively, in order for a “match” to be found. Unfortunately, the thesaurus only recognizes certain concepts, and other search phrases are ignored, and the thesaurus also includes “synonyms” for the specific concepts which are entered when it searches available job openings or candidates, so the scope of what may be included in order to find a “match” is very broad. Thus, a need exists for a system in which both employers and job-seekers may reciprocally require that one or more specific attributes be present in the data files corresponding to the job-seeker and the job opening, respectively.
Similarly, some systems provide users with the power to exercise greater control over the results of a given database search by allowing them to “weight” their preferences with regard to certain terms or attributes in a given data file in order to rank the data files returned in a given search. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,694 allows job-seekers to more accurately describe desired job types by “weighting” their job type preferences. Unfortunately, “weighting” is only done in conjunction with a staff-reallocation or retraining-management system for determining what jobs might be appropriate for particular individuals, and no provision is made for weighting any other factors or attributes. The Pentawave system described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,375 allows employers to weight the importance to be given to each individual candidate attribute. Unfortunately, no corresponding function is available to job-seekers for use in controlling the importance of specific attributes when searching for suitable job openings. Thus, a need exists for a system in which both employers and job-seekers may reciprocally weight their preferences with regard to a wide variety of specific attributes in the data files corresponding to the job-seeker and the job opening, respectively.
Most prior art systems allow users to view any data file in the system simply by entering a search term which is found in that particular data file. At least one system limits the viewing of data files to those users who provide specific information about themselves which meets the criteria of the owners of the data files. Specifically, the MBAFreeagents system allows employers to limit the dissemination of information about particular job openings to those job-seekers who indicate that they have a particular area of expertise and a particular level of experience. Unfortunately, this feature is more targeted at meeting the employer's criteria and not the other way around, the criteria for which this feature may be applied is very limited, and an employer can still view resumes for job-seekers who select different areas of expertise and levels of experience than that specified by the employer. Thus, a need exists for a system which allows data file owners to limit access to their respective data files to those users who meet the criteria of the data file owners.
Another known system is the CareerPath.com system. CareerPath.com posts electronic job listings which correspond directly to classified advertisements printed in a wide variety of major newspapers. Unfortunately, the job openings posted at the CareerPath.com web site are merely copied and/or reformatted directly from the print advertisements without providing job-seekers with any additional functionality, nor may a job-seeker review job listings in a printed newspaper and then cross-reference a listing on CareerPath.com. Thus, a need exists for an online system which interacts with print media by enabling employers to place newspaper advertisements which may be cross-referenced by job-seekers to data files stored within the system and which utilizes the matching and standardization features available through the online system.
Several systems include a network of related web sites to enable users to more efficiently focus on specific item characteristics, such as job-openings in specific geographic areas or in specific industries. For example, Career Mosaic has industry specific databases and provides a gateway to international web sites which provide access to international databases. 1-Jobs.com has dozens of similar web sites purporting to target particular types of jobs or jobs in specific geographic locations. Unfortunately, Career Mosaic and 1-Jobs merely collect and publish job listings and resumes without purporting to provide any employment matching capabilities. 1-Jobs.com enables employment searches to be conducted in different sectors of industry or by geography through multiple web sites. Unfortunately, each web site appears to be controlled by 1-Jobs.com, and thus each such web site must compete with job searching or matching systems offered by entities such as local trade groups or local media including newspapers and radio and television stations; industry trade associations; individual employers; college placement centers; staffing companies and the like. CareerSite appears to offer a matching system for matching job-seeker profiles to job openings which is utilized by both a “universal” web site as well as by other co-branded web sites as well. Unfortunately, the CareerSite-branded web sites are not integrated with one another, forcing users to register at each web site separately and to learn each interface separately Thus, a need exists for a system in which users either offering or searching for items such as job openings may selectively control the scope of the dissemination of, or the search for, information about those job openings or other items, and can utilize a standardized interface to do so.